Adventures and observations of an everyday goddess in La La Land.

May 13, 2013

Shooting In Your Space

I read an interview once with Ed Burns where he said that he cast himself in The Brothers McMullen because then he always knew that at least one person would show up on shoot days.

Well, I'm not an actress, but what I do have is a fairly large - for a one-bedroom in Los Angeles - apartment. And so we shot a lot of my Stage 5 TV Continuum film short, "Zero Sight: Bad Call," in my space. The entire first, fat day of shooting of a two-day shoot, to be specific.

Now, I have an odd hobby in life of going through my things and getting rid of stuff. It's an ongoing, process, and I have a lot less things than I used to. But going into a film shoot, even more had to go. I spent a lot of time moving things like my rocking chair and my bike to my friend's basement, taking things to the thrift store, and reorganizing.

I moved my china cabinet into the bedroom, a freestanding pantry to the porch, and my old TV to the bathroom. I painted my kitchen over Christmas, put all my movie posters under my bed and stuffed my closets to the brim. By the night before the shoot, the only thing in my apartment that I hadn't personally moved was an armoir in a corner of my bedroom. Space was at a premium, and the best place for the sandbags, was the hallway. The HALLWAY where people walk was the best place for the sandbags.

We put most of grip and electric on the porch, but I was concerned about load-bearing so I insisted, no sandbags there. The weight of those suckers adds up fast.

As production design and equipment were moved in, my producer Paige Barnett and I became really concerned about space and number of bodies. So much so that when a friend who had volunteered to be on-set photographer had to cancel, I called Paige and said, "Good news, the set photographer cancelled!" A little tongue in cheek, to be sure, but with a solid tinge of truth. (And BIG thanks to Paige for taking tons of pics during the shoot!)

I wish I'd have somehow hired a script supervisor; I regretted the decision not to in editing, but I honestly don't know how we would have fit another person without all of us going mad. Here's a shot of Jon Gentry (Cam) and VyVy Nguyen (Veronica) chilling out in the bathroom. VyVy's sitting on my TV:

My bedroom was hair and makeup, DIT, AND the green room. Craft services went in the kitchen, and had to be moved whenever it was in the shot. The space was full up, and to the cast and crew, what can I say, but thank you, thank you, thank you for your good humor about it all. Thank you!

Now, my place was previously apartment white. Here's Paige at the beginning of that project, the weekend before the shoot:

And later, when our friend Ralph Sanchez came to give us a hand - and a painting lesson, it turned out:

We did three coats of the yellow, ultimately, on what is a pretty big room. I have to admit, it was a little panic inducing seeing bright yellow paint go up against blue painter's tape. I suddenly had images of my apartment as a preschool. Big thanks to my production designer, Jessica Mahnke, who picked the colors, because it was my confidence in her that kept me breathing while the yellow went up. Here's a shot from the film where you can see some of her marvelous production design:

The craziest thing we did in the apartment was a 180 degree dolly move that required full-size curved dolly track and a doorway dolly. Originally, we'd thought we'd be able to use a smaller rig, but the nature of the move and the size of the RED camera meant we needed to upgrade. Which meant that we needed to fit even more into my apartment. Looking at the track the night before my shoot, I thought to myself, Ah, the fine line between brave and stupid... There it is:

And, setting up for action:

Ultimately, working around my full-time day job, it took about a month to prep the apartment for the shoot, and over a month to recover. It was kind of amazing, and totally worth it. When I came home at the end of day two, I dropped my bags and took this shot:

The sad thing about this pic is that I had to give that TV back. Now *that* took all my personal strength.

So now, my apartment is pretty much all back together. Funny thing, getting ready for a little get-together about a month and half after the shoot I actually thought to myself, What happened to my carpet? And then I laughed out loud. Um, I think it was the film crew.

Karmafit - I did! It was really interesting seeing the apartment evolve into a young 20-something's apartment, and then back into my apartment, and I made some changes in where I put my furniture based on what I saw the production designer do. It's pretty cool, and I am loving it!